Proponents of the free and open-source software development model are using the recently announced delays in the shipping of Microsoft's Windows Vista and Office 2007 products as an example of how the company's software engineering process simply does not work well. They are also pointing to how it stands in direct contrast with the way software gets developed in the free and open-source community, and using the delays to explain why theirs is the better choice.
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Member since:2005-06-29
Uh, no, you've completely missed the point of the essay and I suggest you re-read it.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar...
Many developers is only one point. And there are plenty of people at Microsoft to qualify as many, plenty. However, things like early and frequent releases are missing, customer testing, and small patch contributions are all missing.
There's no spot where everyone discusses things, users yelling at developers, developers yelling back, etc. It's a group of professionals getting paid to develop code in the manner which the company tells them, and it's in no way bazaar; in fact, a lot of software houses come to Redmond to take notes on how Microsoft manages its projects.
Member since:2005-12-23
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--- "Uh, no, you've completely missed the point of the essay and I suggest you re-read it."
Well, no I have not missed the point! I have read the essay several times, and I know it.
Maybe you do NOT want to recognise that you have written a "Sofism", but is a fact, as I demonstrated in my previous post (I said: "Being a lot of them and dispersed is in the essence and nature of the Bazaar. In a real Bazaar, and in the Free-OpenSource Bazaar model of Software production").
Now you answer me with this:
--- "Many developers is only one point. And there are plenty of people at Microsoft to qualify as many, plenty. However, things like early and frequent releases are missing, customer testing, and small patch contributions are all missing.
There's no spot where everyone discusses things, users yelling at developers, developers yelling back, etc. It's a group of professionals getting paid to develop code in the manner which the company tells them, and it's in no way bazaar; in fact, a lot of software houses come to Redmond to take notes on how Microsoft manages its projects."
??? Well, I agree with all this, but this is not exactly what you said in your 1st post.
You said exactly: "The bazaar is great, but if there were as few of them as their are MS devs I think they'd be way behind."
And I answered you: "Nice SOFISM... LOL! Well, if there were as few of them as their are MS devs, then it would not be a bazaar, isn't it??? etc."
Besides, I don't mind if "a lot of software houses come to Redmond to take notes on how Microsoft manages its projects".
Sure they go. But it does not mean that the OpenSource model of production is worst tha the Ms one.
By the way is noticeable that you say "COME" to Redmond, instead of "GO" to Redmond. Are you in Redmond? Do you work for Ms? ...Hmm strange!!!
The Open Source model has already proved it's validity and sucess, and that in many ways is superior to the model that closed source companies use. Even if a lot of software houses go to Redmond to take notes on how Microsoft manages its projects.
A a lot of Closed source commercial software houses go to Free-OpenSource projects to take notes on how they manage their projects too; and to understand the mechanism of their sucess to try to apply them themselves in their closed source projects.
What they do not understand is the real nature of the openSource and the Bazaar. So, many of these mechanisms of the Bazaar and OpenSource, could never be applied to the Closed source companies, because, not only the production pattern is diferent, but also the essence of the sotware itself, what impedes the same level of integration, production and interoperability between programers and programers and testers, and users...
Also because of the different legal nature and status and mentality of the bits produced among the two models.
For instance Ms is trying to reproduce the BitTorrent schema, or even modify the program to use it to apply the software corrections and security patches that the Windows users download, in order to save time, money and server use.
But I do not see thousands of people and companies torrenting the patches, and therefore keeping open their torrent security patches, and at the same time paying money, and wasting time and server resources to make the work that Ms should do, and the work that they have already paid to Ms to make (when buying the licences). So what MS will do is making it possible and make the future Windows torrent the patches, without the user knowing that!
In the Bazaar pattern of production and collaboration, I do not think it would happen in the same way. So if Ms would be an OpenSource company ( 
), it will be probably easier for them to use a kind of BitTorrent model to update Windows and to patch the security holes of windows!
It would be in the interest of the software and the users. But what Ms pretends is in the interest of the users, the software, and mainly in the interest of Ms ...
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Member since:
2005-12-23
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"The bazaar is great, but if there were as few of them as their are MS devs I think they'd be way behind."
Nice SOFISM... LOL!
Well, if there were as few of them as their are MS devs, then it would not be a bazaar, isn't it???
Being a lot of them and dispersed is in the essence and nature of the Bazaar. In a real Bazaar, and in the Free-OpenSource Bazaar model of Software production.
Therefore your sentence, although very nice, has not sense at all!
You can not compare a Bazaar pattern, that would not be a Bazaar with the Ms pattern, then...
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